Learning Edge is the Center

July 23, 2009

Earlier this week was in a good skype call and video with friend Chris Corrigan. The beauty of skype video -- seeing Chris's deck, yard, garden and sharing a bit of the duck ponds out my window. I loved our exploring. As is always / often the case, much shows up in our interaction that feels like a gift.

One was the sense of "learning edge" being at the center. Quite often in our work together we encourage ourselves and others to go to the learning edge. Most often I think of this as something "out there," something that is far away. In fact, I'd asked Chris something about what was the most "far out" learning that he felt he was in. He shared some of his. I shared some of mine. And then we began to notice some of what makes things feel far out. Uncertainty. And in particular, uncertainty when it has implications on the lives of the ones we love. Such is life indeed -- an invitation to many uncertains. And such is the process of being awake or alert -- an invitation to go to those uncertains. It can take us to what feels like an edge, often marked by such things as "conventional wisdom" or "majority perspective."

That conversation helped us both realize something anew. It is the process of coming to have radical trust in our own wisdom. Or in the wisdom that is not as apparent in "conventional wisdom." And then this gem -- that to come to have radical trust in our own wisdom is to come to trust our own core. To shift the learning edge is to shift the identity at the core of who we are. To be at the learning edge is to live into the very center of who we see ourselves to be.

Interesting to think of the invitation that this provides for any of us and our clients. Go to your learning edge. OK. Go deep into your center to recognize what is at the core. Be willing to recognize what might be audacious in your belief or action, and dare to find at the learning edge, the very center from which "unconventional wisdom" is trying to be born.

A good one to play with. A gift of another way of seeing it.